EF1 tornado, Albany, Kentucky, March 15, 2026

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating, as surveyed

EF1, preliminary

Date

March 15, 2026

Touchdown

12:35 AM CDT (05:35 UTC)

Lifted

12:37 AM CDT (05:37 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.3 miles (2.0 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Clinton County

Touchdown point

36.662, -85.160

Lift-off point

36.672, -85.143

Highest wind the damage implies

100 mph

Surveyed by

NWS LMK

The office's name for it

Clinton County Tornado

Survey last edited

March 18, 2026

Record number

None yet. SPC numbers 2026 in the spring of 2027.

The National Weather Service conducted a storm survey on Wednesday, March 18th for the storms that occurred early Monday morning, March 16th. A tornado was determined to have occurred in Clinton County with max winds of 100 MPH (EF1).

Storm damage was first observed along Wright Parish Road southwest of Albany near Wolf River Dock Road. A line of cedar trees had extensive damage, with several treetops and branches pointing to the north, east, and opposite of the northeast storm motion to the southwest. Some branches showed signs of being ripped and twisted from the trees as well, which was indicative of rotation from a tornado.

The tornado continued uphill to a nearby residence with several outbuildings. One barn was completely moved from the foundation with roof damage lofted into nearby fields. The damage direction was mainly to the east, pointing toward the tornadic circulation that was moving to the northeast. Another section of barn damage was pointing to the north, indicating the right side of the circulation nearby. A drone flight confirmed this information. A nearby residence had awning damage that was moved to the northeast, with the most notable damage being a couple of wood plank impalements that were driven into the ground facing the opposite direction of the storm motion to the southwest. The max wind speed near this damage along Rice Road and Wolf River Dock Road was 100 mph.

The tornado continued to the northeast and damage to trees and outbuildings occurred along Hay Road, Huntersville Road, and Robert Page Road. Several trees were snapped and a barn was leveled, and the convergent signature of the tree damage to the north and east directions were noted. The tornado continued northeast along Robert Page Road where a residence had roof and siding damage that was lofted to the northeast away from the property. The debris went up to US Highway 127, and no other damage was observable past this point.

The National Weather Service would like to thank Clinton County Emergency Management for their assistance on the storm survey, as well as the helpful homeowners who allowed access to their properties.

Written by NWS LMK in the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit. A survey is revised as better evidence arrives.

16 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LMK, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• Barn material facing east toward tornado circulation
• Damage facing to the north
• Damage to the east, north, and opposite to the west
• Damage to east pulling to middle circulation

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

During the late evening and overnight hours March 15th into March 16th, a strong upper level trough and associated cold front moved across the Ohio Valley. Ahead of the cold front, temperatures were in the 70s with dew point temperatures in the upper 50s and low 60s. This corridor of modest low-level destabilization contained between 250 and 500 J/kg of MLCAPE which was oriented immediately ahead of the surface front and the main line of showers and thunderstorms. With a corridor of 80 knot mid-level winds approaching from the west, effective bulk shear was between 40 and 50 knots for this event, creating a typical high-shear, low-CAPE setup for central Kentucky and southern Indiana. While the primary forcing mechanism was lifting along the cold front, resulting in a quasi-linear convective system, some scattered cells developed ahead of the main line of storms across western Kentucky. These storms had transient supercellular characteristics, and would go on to produce a swath of stronger winds and a few embedded tornadoes across Butler, Grayson, Breckinridge, Hardin, and Meade County. Elsewhere across Kentucky, scattered wind damage was produced by the main line of storms, with more favorably oriented segments of the line producing additional weak spin-up tornadoes. As the line of storms pushed east toward the I-75 corridor early in the morning on March 16th, there was a general weakening trend as MLCAPE values dropped to only around 100 J/kg across the Bluegrass. However, the portion of the line across southern Kentucky had access to slightly greater instability, resulting in additional instances of wind damage and a spin-up tornado in Clinton County. The line of storms eventually pushed into eastern Kentucky by around 3 AM on March 16th, with much cooler air rushing into the region behind the cold front.

The National Weather Service conducted a storm survey on Wednesday, March 18th for the storms that occurred early Monday morning, March 16th. A tornado was determined to have occurred in Clinton County with max winds of 100 MPH (EF1).||Storm damage was first observed along Wright Parish Road southwest of Albany near Wolf River Dock Road. A line of cedar trees had extensive damage, with several treetops and branches pointing to the north, east, and opposite of the northeast storm |motion to the southwest. Some branches showed signs of being ripped and twisted from the trees as well, which was indicative of rotation from a tornado. ||The tornado continued uphill to a nearby residence with several outbuildings. One barn was completely moved from the foundation with roof damage lofted into nearby fields. The damage direction was mainly to the east, pointing toward the tornadic circulation |that was moving to the northeast. Another section of barn damage was pointing to the north, indicating the right side of the circulation nearby. A drone flight confirmed this information. A nearby residence had awning damage that was moved to the northeast, with the most notable damage being a couple of wood plank impalements that were driven into the ground facing the opposite direction of the storm motion to the southwest. The max wind speed near this damage along Rice Road and Wolf River Dock |Road was 100 mph.||The tornado continued to the northeast and damage to trees and outbuildings occurred along Hay Road, Huntersville Road, and Robert Page Road. Several trees were snapped and a barn was leveled, and the convergent signature of the tree damage to the |north and east directions were noted. The tornado continued northeast along Robert Page Road where a residence had roof and siding damage that was lofted to the northeast away from the property. The debris went up to US Highway 127, and no other |damage was observable past this point.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

15 minutes of warning. NWS LMK issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:20 UTC, 15 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 05:48 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:27 UTC and running to 06:08 UTC.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Enhanced Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:43 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

The Nashville radar (KOHX), 135 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:35 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2026 tornado in KentuckyEvery tornado in Kentucky since 1950Warnings in force in Kentucky nowThe forecast where you are

43 more have been surveyed in the United States that day, so far.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. A survey can be revised, so the rating, the path and the casualties can all still change.

NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit, the record the survey teams file from the damage, and NOAA Storm Prediction Center storm reports. Neither is the official database for 2026, which SPC publishes in the spring of 2027.